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Monday, 27 April 2015

April 27th
Check out these beautiful flowers! We took inspiration from artist Georgia O'keeffe to paint these flowers. I am so happy with how they turned out. I told the students to make their flower fill and fall right off of the page. I think they did a great job!

Thursday, 23 April 2015

Today our school celebrated World Book Day! There were all sorts of activities taking place including: Dress up day, used book sale, photo booth, guess the "Book Worms" draw, and hidden "Golden Tickets".

Our class is reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory right now. I dressed as Willy Wonka and several of the kids got in on the fun and dressed as other characters from the book. If you look closely you might see: Mike Teevee, Violet Beauregarde, Augustus Gloop and Veruca Salt.

We have completed two fun science experiments this week. On Monday we tested two different bridge designs to see which was stronger. We tested a arch and a square structure. After the students constructed their bridge they tested the strength with weights.

On Wednesday we tested three different beam styles for strength. First students had to construct, out of paper, an accordion beam, a rectangular beam and a box girder beam. After construction was complete the students completed a fair test to see which beam was strongest.

Everyday after lunch the students have 20 minutes to practice partner reading, also called "Read with Someone". We also refer to this as EEKK reading. The idea is: for the students to sit elbow to elbow and knee to knee, I'll read to you and you read to me. The students sit with the book between them, they take turns reading one page of the book. Students can offer assistance as a "reading coach" if their partner struggles with a word while reading.

Today in art the students drew and then painting spring tulips. We used watercolours. Some of the students added extra details with wax crayons which caused a neat crayon resist effect. Students were learning how to draw and then paint the leaves so that they appeared either in front of or behind the stems of the other tulips. (This was tricky!). We were also focusing on adding different shades of colour to the flowers and to the background.

We have started our new unit in Science, Testing Materials and Designs. Today we were looking and a variety of building materials that we will be using for this unit. Students were to examine each of the materials; describe the properties and list how they might be useful for building.